Overclocking Maxwell?

[Cerberus]

MSI afterburner will only let me do power limit and fan curve, moving sliders on core and memory do nothing and revert back to 0, how do I push this GTX 980 a little more?

[BWG]

That's odd. Which driver are you running? Did you unlock the vcore in the settings?

[Avacado]

GTX 980 is manufacturer voltage locked at 1.2v. I have managed to get 1.215 out of it, but that is the limit. Even with a KPE, I have only ever been able to squeeze 200w so far. I'll find my thread and link it. I have not finished completely, but I am almost at the end of what vBIOS modding will achieve. You will need a hard mod to push it further, which it is completely capable of. 

 

Here you go.

 

 

Edited January 12, 2022 by Avacado

[J7SC_Orion]

4 hours ago, Cerberus said:

MSI afterburner will only let me do power limit and fan curve, moving sliders on core and memory do nothing and revert back to 0, how do I push this GTX 980 a little more?

 

It depends to some extent on your particular card, once  MSI AB is sorted re. oc and voltage limits, you can also look for the highest-version number of s.th. called "Maxwell Bios Tweaker".

 

 

I had (& still have) several EVGA 980 Classified which in those years were basically identical to the KPEs, including EVBot ports. With the right cooling, one could get away with 1.25v - 1.3v +.

 

There were also KPE and Asus Stix XOC bios floating around - probably still are accessible at the corresponding HWBot forums. It's been many years so I don't recall all of it, but the Asus Strix XOC bios not only worked on my EVGA 980 Classies, but various other cards as well. That said, it needed a lot of voltage and cooling right from boot-up, and w/o using EVBot to add voltskies, it could sometimes hang at windows start...

[Avacado]

12 minutes ago, J7SC_Orion said:

 

It depends to some extent on your particular card, once  MSI AB is sorted re. oc and voltage limits, you can also look for the highest-version number of s.th. called "Maxwell Bios Tweaker".

 

 

I had (& still have) several EVGA 980 Classified which in those years were basically identical to the KPEs, including EVBot ports. With the right cooling, one could get away with 1.25v - 1.3v +.

 

There were also KPE and Asus Stix XOC bios floating around - probably still are accessible at the corresponding HWBot forums. It's been many years so I don't recall all of it, but the Asus Strix XOC bios not only worked on my EVGA 980 Classies, but various other cards as well. That said, it needed a lot of voltage and cooling right from boot-up, and w/o using EVBot to add voltskies, it could sometimes hang at windows start...

You can't add more than 1.215v on current drivers. You would need to find ancient drivers to accomplish it. 

 

I would love to get my hands on an EVBot. 

Edited January 12, 2022 by Avacado

[damric]

Watching this thread closely as I have Michele's GTX 750 which I'm yet to get over 1425MHz, as well as another Maxwell on the way, a Quadro M2000. The Quadro will most definitely need some BIOS foolery to get clocking.

[Avacado]

There is nothing to watch here. I'm telling you that the 980 won't do over 1.215v on current drivers. GTX 980Ti's and classifieds were able to do this, but not currently. Unless J7 can produce ancient drivers, 1.2v is a hard lock. If you do find those ancient drivers, please share!

 

P.S. I had a pair of M4000's and they were not vBIOS modifiable. I tried. GL with the M2000. You knew I did modding on the K and M series quadro's, i'm surprised you didn't ask me first @damric

Edited January 12, 2022 by Avacado

[mouacyk]

Used to run 1506MHz at 1.274v on my MSI GTX 980TI with a custom-modded BIOS. Those were the days. Pretty sure it's the same Maxwell BIOS editor for non-TI.

[Avacado]

28 minutes ago, mouacyk said:

Used to run 1506MHz at 1.274v on my MSI GTX 980TI with a custom-modded BIOS. Those were the days. Pretty sure it's the same Maxwell BIOS editor for non-TI.

980TI's ARE vBIOS modifiable. Regular 980's are NOT. It is the exact same Maxwell bios editor, you will just need the version of NVFlash with ID mismatch. 

Edited January 12, 2022 by Avacado

[BWG]

Shouldn't he be able to at least slide the core clock up though, or is he going to need to edit the bios to? I can do the slider on my 960 on the newest driver. Weird that it's not saving for him.

 

Maybe you can try Precision X1 to see if it will save as potentially an easy button @Cerberus

Edited January 12, 2022 by BWG

[damric]

58 minutes ago, Avacado said:

There is nothing to watch here. I'm telling you that the 980 won't do over 1.215v on current drivers. GTX 980Ti's and classifieds were able to do this, but not currently. Unless J7 can produce ancient drivers, 1.2v is a hard lock. If you do find those ancient drivers, please share!

 

P.S. I had a pair of M4000's and they were not vBIOS modifiable. I tried. GL with the M2000. You knew I did modding on the K and M series quadro's, i'm surprised you didn't ask me first @damric

Weird I found instances where m4000 was indeed overclocked. If it can't then it will go back to ebay at a loss. I haven't found anything about people trying to oc the m2000 though so I might be first to try. I wish the nvidia stuff was easier to oc. I had great success with the really old Nvidia stuff prior to kepler.

[Avacado]

38 minutes ago, damric said:

Weird I found instances where m4000 was indeed overclocked. If it can't then it will go back to ebay at a loss. I haven't found anything about people trying to oc the m2000 though so I might be first to try. I wish the nvidia stuff was easier to oc. I had great success with the really old Nvidia stuff prior to kepler.

If you run into any snags, i'm more than happy to help. I am quite certain that drivers have limited OCing over the years. You should spend time trying to find day one drivers for the cards. I wager that might be different. 

 

I did google what you did and it does look like people were having success OCing it. I tried all 3 versions of NVFlash, but none would flash the card. I have since sold the pair, so I can't try anymore. 

Edited January 12, 2022 by Avacado

[pio]

1 hour ago, Avacado said:

If you run into any snags, i'm more than happy to help. I am quite certain that drivers have limited OCing over the years. You should spend time trying to find day one drivers for the cards. I wager that might be different. 

 

I did google what you did and it does look like people were having success OCing it. I tried all 3 versions of NVFlash, but none would flash the card. I have since sold the pair, so I can't try anymore. 

Day one drivers, you mean these ones?

https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/geforce-344-11-whql-driver-download.html

[J7SC_Orion]

4 hours ago, Avacado said:

You can't add more than 1.215v on current drivers. You would need to find ancient drivers to accomplish it. 

 

I would love to get my hands on an EVBot. 

   

3 hours ago, Avacado said:

There is nothing to watch here. I'm telling you that the 980 won't do over 1.215v on current drivers. GTX 980Ti's and classifieds were able to do this, but not currently. Unless J7 can produce ancient drivers, 1.2v is a hard lock. If you do find those ancient drivers, please share!

 

P.S. I had a pair of M4000's and they were not vBIOS modifiable. I tried. GL with the M2000. You knew I did modding on the K and M series quadro's, i'm surprised you didn't ask me first @damric

 

I disagree entirely ...

 

I just ran this on one of my four 980 Classies (this one is now air-cooled again), NOT an ancient driver but one from last fall and nope, no 1.2v hard-lock.

 

This is on the modded stock EVGA bios (rather than the crazier aforementioned Asus Strix XOC bios below). 1500 MHz on air is child's play. Max watt = around 330W

 

 

2nd pic is an oldie of mine for the same card but with Asus Strix XOC bios and on cold water...when cooled properly and with EVBot, it could (and still can) get deep into the 1700 MHz range.

 

 

 

 

 

[Avacado]

15 minutes ago, J7SC_Orion said:

   

 

I disagree entirely ...

 

I just ran this on one of my four 980 Classies (this one is now air-cooled again), NOT an ancient driver but one from last fall and nope, no 1.2v hard-lock.

 

This is on the modded stock EVGA bios (rather than the crazier aforementioned Asus Strix XOC bios below). 1500 MHz on air is child's play. Max watt = around 330W

 

 

2nd pic is an oldie of mine for the same card but with Asus Strix XOC bios and on cold water...when cooled properly and with EVBot, it could (and still can) get deep into the 1700 MHz range.

 

 

 

 

 

 

4 hours ago, Avacado said:

GTX 980Ti's and classifieds were able to do this

 

I have done a fair amount of research and spent countless hours recently attempting to mod the vbios. No joy. Voltage is HARD LOCKED on my KPE. Can you link me a better BIOS perhaps? I would owe you one.

 

I am also aware that 1500MHz is "Childs Play" I don't post without testing extensively testing first and I am ALWAYS game to be wrong. I would love to go balls deep into 1700MHz, but despite multiple attempts with M Tweaker, I have not been successful. Most all of the research I did mirrors the inability to get past 1.2v

 

Will try to use afterburner this weekend. 

 

/img/logo.png

AvacadoEHW`s 3DMark - Cloud Gate score: 63979 marks with a GeForce GTX 980

HWBOT.ORG

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The GeForce GTX 980 @ 1620/2053MHzscores getScoreFormatted in the 3DMark - Cloud Gate benchmark. AvacadoEHWranks #null worldwide and #6 in the hardware class. Find out more at HWBOT.

 

Edited January 13, 2022 by Avacado

[Cerberus]

so i need to load a bios? what program? Nvflash (what version), gpu-z? anything else?

im trying x1 right now

 

 

this is the card btw

GeForce® GTX 980 AMP! | ZOTAC

WWW.ZOTAC.COM

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<p>The GeForce® GTX 980 is the world’s fastest, most advanced graphics card. Powered by new NVIDIA® Maxwell™ architecture, it...

 

[Cerberus]

x1 was a no go.

[J7SC_Orion]

Ok folks - I'm still at work, and absolutely positively no guarantee on any of these custom bios. First back up your current bios and save it, you know the drill...

 

Some of these are hardcore XOC bios for 980s and might not even boot properly...the ones with 980_8x to 980_9x are the Asus Strix XOC afair, but it is close to 8 years ago than I flashed these. I believe that the 980_8x has a lower starting voltage requirement but could be wrong. 

 

Attached as  .txt files, just rename .txt to .rom 

 

AGAIN - at your own risk - Cheers

 

 

 

980_normal.txt 980_80.txt 980_cl.txt 980_90.txt classXX.txt ClassyX.txt

[Avacado]

I have listed links to all the software you would need in the thread that I made about the king pen 980

[J7SC_Orion]

@Cerberus ...in addition to the actual bios files attachments in my previous post re. your and Avacado's posts, I checked and seem to have used 'nvflash_5.190.0.1' to allow for cross-flashing of the Asus Strix XOC onto my EVGA Classified...that version might also work with your Zotac Amp card (if it has 2x 8 pin connectors at least)

Edited January 13, 2022 by J7SC_Orion

[Avacado]

9 minutes ago, J7SC_Orion said:

@Cerberus ...in addition to the actual bios files attachments in my previous post re. your and Avacado's posts, I checked and seem to have used 'nvflash_5.190.0.1' to allow for cross-flashing of the Asus Strix XOC onto my EVGA Classified...that version might also work with your Zotac Amp card (if it has 2x 8 pin connectors at least)

Thanks for that. Will look into it. I respect your technical prowess and you are obviously able to do something me and cerb arent yet. Despite the fact that I have successfully vbios volt modded pascal, keplar and maxwell previously, you are making me feel like a reddit kid.

 

I really would hate to flash an XOC onto a kingpin. I need to look harder for a better bios.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Avacado

[J7SC_Orion]

5 minutes ago, Avacado said:

Thanks for that. Will look into it. I respect your technical prowess and you are obviously able to do something me and cerb arent yet. Despite the fact that I have successfully vbios volt modded pascal, keplar and maxwell previously, you are making me feel like a reddit kid.

 

I really would hate to flash an XOC onto a kingpin. I need to look harder for a better bios.

 

Actually, that's all so long ago I probably forgot more now than what I retained 

[Cerberus]

im gonna try the _80 first

 

[J7SC_Orion]

24 minutes ago, Cerberus said:

im gonna try the _80 first

 

 

...every time you load a different bios, Win and also MSI AB will treat it as a new GPU. You might even want to uninstall MSI AB completely, the re-install after bios flash

[Sir Beregond]

I'm still running a Strix 980 right now. If I had a decent backup (no not what's going in the new rig), I might be more of a risk taker on those.